


The Night Is Darkest

by 7ofnah (vulcansmirk)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Slow Burn, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:46:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24006832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vulcansmirk/pseuds/7ofnah
Summary: A study in getting lost and finding your way back.(Endgame (hah????) Steve/Bucky)
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Sam Wilson, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	The Night Is Darkest

**Author's Note:**

> Finally cracked this thing. Only took me a year, a global crisis, and yet another marathon.
> 
> Kinda winging it here, which is unusual for me. But I need to be writing again, and frankly this seems relevant to my current emotional state, hence the recent cracking.
> 
> Eventual Steve/Bucky (and much related angst throughout, obvs), but Steve Rogers is the bisexual America deserves, and Peggy Carter is the powerhouse woman none of us deserve.
> 
> Tags and warnings will be updated as we go.

It’s quiet here. The wind flits by on fickle fingers, the waves shatter against the rocks, and all of it is caught and cradled in a bed of green and gray that slips, careless, over the horizon. There is no sound too great to be held by this place. There is no chaos too powerful to be stilled.

Well. Almost none.

“You can’t hide up here forever.”

Bucky is too well-trained to flinch.

Frostbitten blades of grass crackle behind him.

“Pretty rich, coming from you,” Bucky says.

A shadow looms in his peripheral vision. The grass falls silent.

The shadow hums, and the sound rolls over Bucky like—

“There is a difference,” Thor rumbles, considering, “between moving on and running away.”

And then there’s a hand hovering an inch from Bucky’s nose. He stares.

“Come, my friend,” says Thor. “You have a visitor.”

_Bucky knew a thing or two about goodbyes. Hell, he’d doled out enough of them. Missed even more. He knew the difference between “be right back” and “have a good life”—the glint in the eye; the pressure of the hand. Bucky Barnes knew a real goodbye when he saw it._

_So when his best friend said to him, “It’s gonna be okay, Buck,” he knew it for what it was. He knew that glint, that pressure._

_“Alright,” said Bruce, staring down at his control pad. Oblivious. “We’ll meet you back here, okay?”_

_Standing on the platform, Steve nodded. “You bet.”_

_Bucky watched, hands balled into fists in his sweatshirt pocket._

Yeah, right.

_Steve locked eyes with him. Bucky did his best to smile._

_And then he was gone._

They descend from the cliffs as the sleep-drunk sun wobbles over the town below. Waking workers have only just begun to animate the streets, like ants scurrying through the well-worn tunnels of an anthill, casting long, needle-thin shadows. Though young, New Asgard is a place with rhythm. A home.

They join the ants in their tunnels. Thor smiles jovially at each one they pass.

He calls to one in particular, “Captain!” Bucky is too well-trained to flinch.

“Wassup, Hammerpants,” Sam grins, extending his hand.

Thor grasps that hand, his eyes suffused with warmth. Bucky hovers in Thor’s shadow, silent.

Sam’s sharp gaze roots him out.

“Barnes. Just the man I was looking for. You were a lot easier to find this time, y’know. You might be slipping.”

“Kinda tough to hide with a big lug like you chained to my ankle.”

Sam watches him, expectant, for long enough to make it awkward. Bucky just stands there, hands in his pockets.

Finally, Sam rolls his eyes, moves forward, and drags Bucky in for a brash, one-armed hug.

It comes out low, private, when Sam asks, “How you been, man?”

Bucky forces his taut muscles to loosen a little. Doesn’t return Sam’s embrace.

“Been fine,” he lies.

_Bucky let the door fall shut behind him, let darkness blanket the cramped little room. He didn’t want to see it—didn’t want to lay eyes on the evidence of the life that was here, the presence that filled this space just hours before and now left only a vacuum in its wake, like a ship slipping down into the churning sea._

_Yeah, sure, he saw it coming. But there’s really no preparing for a shipwreck._

_It was just one room. Rough-thatched walls. A table, a fire pit, an indulgent down mattress on the dirt floor. King T’Challa offered him more, but Bucky refused. Liked the idea of living small._

_He hated it now. Fucking despised it, because it was just one room, and now there was no looking away from the papers strewn across the table, the pencils lying scattered, freshly abandoned, ready to be picked up again any moment. There was no avoiding the sketches taped up by the bed, careless charcoal strokes teasing of a hand now far beyond reach._

_Bucky let the door fall shut and the light cut out before he could look at the bed. Before he could spy the rumpled sheets, the lingering imprint of two bodies._

_He flopped gracelessly onto the mattress, destroying the imprint. Stared up toward the woven ceiling, sightless._

Bucky. Look at me.

_He screwed his eyes shut. Kneaded them with the heels of his hands._

It’s gonna be okay.

_He took one long, unsteady breath. Laid back. Ignored the wetness warming his cheeks._

_For a minute there, he’d loved this place. The place where he got his agency back. Where he got himself back._

_Where he got Steve back._

_Bucky left the next morning._

“‘Fine,’” Sam repeats, drawing the word out, drenching it in skepticism. “Alright. We’ll take it. For now.”

He doesn’t take his arm from Bucky’s shoulders. Instead, he loops it tight around Bucky’s neck, dragging them both around as he pivots toward the open road.

“Come on,” says Sam. “Let’s take a walk.”

_The downside to holing up in the most secure country on the planet is that you can’t just sneak back out._

_He went to Shuri, because she was most likely to understand, and because he thought maybe he could handle the pity for a second if it came from her. Even when she pitied him, he knew she wasn’t judging him. He’d always be grateful for that._

_He wished he had it in him to tell her that. Instead, he just said, “I need a ride somewhere.”_

_Just as he’d thought, her eyes were knowing, and sad._

_“Where are you going to go?” she asked gently._

_Bucky shrugged. “Dunno. Somewhere else.”_

_Shuri pursed her lips. Her eyes shone with a clarity and wisdom far beyond her years._

_She clasped his hands—one flesh, one metal—between hers._

_“Bucky,” she said. “This doesn’t have to be how it ends.”_

_Bucky smiled, brittle and joyless._

_“Bit late for that, isn’t it?”_

_She didn’t blink. Her gaze went right through him._

_“It’s never too late.”_

They end up on the beach, water crashing against the huge black stones littering the shore.

Bucky doesn’t talk. Sam doesn’t make him.

But he doesn’t leave, either. Bucky thinks maybe this is what finally drives him to speak.

“What’s it like for you, being back?” he asks Sam.

Sam hums, mulling it over. “Weird,” he decides. “Which in its own way I guess is also normal. Lotta my old war buddies got dusted, too, so that’s a whole other thing to bring to support group. Some others didn’t, which was also pretty rough. My mom’s still around. She was real happy to see me again. Lots of crying. Even more than when I got back from the war.”

Bucky nods. Everybody’s pretty much got the same stories nowadays.

“How bout you?” And he saw it coming from a mile off, but even with all that damn training, Bucky almost flinches.

He shrugs. Looks out to sea, away from Sam.

“Same, pretty much,” he says. “Weird.”

“Yeah? Weird how?”

Bucky drags his feet extra low through the sand, digging a big trough. Leaving a mark, however fleeting.

“I dunno. My ma’s been dead awhile now, and most the other folks I knew, so in a lot of ways nothing’s changed.”

“Uh-huh. And in other ways…?”

“I dunno,” Bucky repeats, feeling stupid. Feeling trapped. “I didn’t have a whole lot of people to miss me while I was gone, so.”

Sam clicks his tongue. “I can think of one.”

Bucky scowls. “Well he didn’t stick around long after I got back, did he, so how much could he really’ve missed me?”

“Hey.” Sam lays his hand on Bucky’s chest, dragging them both to a halt.

Bucky stares down at his feet.

“Bucky, he loved you.”

A wave crashes, the spray stinging Bucky’s eyes, staining his cheek.

“Don’t,” he says.

“He did. He does.” Sam steps around, clasps his hands around Bucky’s shoulders. Bucky doesn’t look up. “Losing you broke him. Twice.”

“Looked pretty alright to me.”

“Yeah? You must be gettin’ old, if your eyes are that bad.”

That wins Sam a laugh. It’s short-lived.

“He was a wreck, these last five years. You could smell it on him.”

Bucky sniffs. “Well it looks like he figured it out.”

“Did he?”

Bucky doesn’t answer.

“Talk to me, man,” Sam pleads. “Let it out. It’s the only way you’re gonna be able to move on.”

That gets another laugh, but it’s not a happy one.

“What? What’s so funny?”

Bucky shakes his head, angles his face away so Sam can’t see the saltwater on his cheek.

“I was ready to move on,” he says. “Before Thanos, before… before all of it. I was gonna tell him.”

“Tell him what?”

Bucky tries another laugh, but chokes on it. He’s shaking down to his bones.

“I wasn’t supposed to have to move on _from_ him,” he says. “I was supposed to move on _with_ him. I had it all figured out.”

“You’re losin’ me, dude.”

Bucky sniffs, swipes at his cheek with his flesh hand.

“You really wanna know?” he asks, casting a cautious gaze at Sam’s face.

Sam gives him a look. “I’ve spent the last ten minutes asking, haven’t I? Or did I hallucinate that?”

Bucky shoves him.

“Come on,” he says, making an about-face and heading back the way they’ve come. “If you want the whole sad song, you gotta come back to my place.”

“Fine, but this better not take nine years and end in a way that betrays everyone’s character development.”

Bucky catches himself wanting to smile.

* * *

He works in chronological order. A little silly, under the circumstances, but it’s as good an order as any. And that part’s nice: the structure. The closure.

In 1970, he watches himself gesticulating at Tony from afar. Watches Tony embrace his father for the first and last time. Smothers the screaming urge to warn him. Replaces a stone.

In 2012, he approaches his own unconscious form, emblazoned with stars and stripes somehow more garish than any other uniform he can remember wearing. Tries not to feel dirty, tarnished. Worn. Replaces a stone.

Then he watches Bruce part ways with a robed figure on a rooftop. As he approaches, he notices how utterly, strangely still the figure stands.

“Captain Rogers.” The figure doesn’t turn around, nor move any muscle at all that Steve can see.

He takes a cautious step forward. “Yes, ma’am.”

“It would seem Dr. Banner is a man of his word. What a refreshing quality.”

Steve doesn’t know what to say to that, so he doesn’t say anything. He sets down the case in his hand, pops it open. Pulls out a stone.

“I believe this is yours,” he says, time itself resting an inch above his palm.

The figure turns around, finally—fluidly, like a well-oiled hinge, or a star in orbit.

“It belongs to none of us, Captain,” says the Ancient One, stepping toward him. “It is given, and it is taken away. Ours to protect, to cherish, but not to hold.”

She stops in front of him. The light in her eyes seems to illuminate all the spiderweb cracks in him.

“You know that better than most, I think,” she muses, barely smiling.

_“Steve…?”_

_He scrabbled in the dirt, raking his skin raw. It lodged under his fingernails._

_“Steve. My friend.”_

_A hand—a hand on his shoulder. Warm. Heavy._

_“Can you, um—” Steve’s lungs filled up. “I just—I need—”_

_The hand spasmed on his shoulder. Thor’s voice rumbled beside him._

_“It’s done. Steve, it’s—it’s over.”_

_Steve’s throat bunched up like a ten-car pileup. His fingertips stung. He kept digging._

_“He—He just—I need to—”_

_Thor’s hand clamped down, so hard it hurt. For some reason, this was the thing that sucked the air from Steve’s lungs._

_He sagged, tipped over. Thor caught him._

_“I’m sorry,” croaked the god. “I’m sorry.”_

_Steve fell to pieces in Thor’s arms, fingernails caked in ashes._

Steve clears his throat. Shuffles his feet.

Chuckling, the Ancient One reaches forward. With a flourish, she plucks the stone from his hand as though manipulating the very currents of the air like strings. It spins placidly in her ethereal grip, irregular green facets wheeling across her pale skin.

“You have returned my time to me,” she says. “You have my thanks for that. May you find your way back to your own someday.”

There’s a strange glint in her eye, even stranger than the preternatural glint of the Infinity Stone in her hand. He can’t quite shake the weight of it.

_Steve hadn’t thought about Peggy for a while. At least, not like this—she’d always hovered in the back of his mind in one form or another, her faith in him a touchstone, her wisdom lighting his way. Ma would’ve called her his guardian angel. But it’d been years since Steve thought of her like this: like a void, yawning, howling; like the winter of 1929, the sick twist of an empty stomach and an earth-shattering cough and the knowledge that there was no coming back, not from this. It had been a long, long time since Steve thought of Peggy and ached._

_Noticing Natasha’s eyes on him, Steve snapped the compass shut, banishing the sight of the torn and faded photo, if not the chasm it had carved._

_Nat’s keen eyes flicked up to his face._

_“This is gonna work, Steve,” she promised, the void of space yawning over both their heads._

_He met her gaze._

_“I know it is,” he said, firm—and then less so, “‘cause I don’t know what I’m gonna do if it doesn’t.”_

_Steve should have known better, of course. And if he was really honest, he did. When he flattened himself to his seat, gritting his teeth and winding his fingers around the arm rests and straining back as though he could prevent the whole damn ship from hurtling through the jump point, it was with the same nauseous churning in his gut, the same awful feeling of freefall that had sunk its claws into him the day he drove that plane into the ice and that hadn’t left him since._

_There was no coming back. Not from this._

In 2013, he goes to Asgard, a beautiful, shining beacon of a planet that reminds Steve of the way his ma used to describe heaven. He can almost imagine her here, whiling away eternity, and feels a pang of loss—for his kind, generous, bullheaded mother, a lifetime ago, and for this place. This paradise. This home.

He stifles the feeling. Replaces a stone. (And a hammer.)

In 2014, Steve travels to yet another new planet, this one stormy and covered in the ruins of a long-dead civilization. It is bleak, violent. Familiar. He replaces a stone.

Then he goes to Vormeer.

_Steve knew not a damn thing about how to say goodbye. He’d only ever had a handful of people in his life to say it to, and they always seemed to beat him to the punch. The one real goodbye he got was to Peggy, and he couldn’t even bring himself to say it then._

Maybe this is why, _he thought, a little delirious, standing on the platform, waiting to be whisked back in time. They weren’t lost on him, the implications of this. He could still feel the grain of the wood of that picture frame in his hands._

_A picture of him. A picture of before._

_Steve Rogers had no idea how to say goodbye. And there, on that platform, he had just enough time to lock eyes with his best friend and regret it._

_And then he was gone._

He stands outside for a while. Walks around the block a few times. Wills his heart to slow, his hands to stop sweating.

Steve isn’t sure how long it is before he’s standing in front of the door, hand poised to knock. He takes several short, sharp breaths, then a couple slower ones.

The door flies open.

“Who are you?” demands the barrel of a handgun. “Why have you been hovering around my house?”

The sound of that voice dissolves every last molecule of Steve’s nerve. It also dissolves the last of his hesitation.

“Peggy,” he rasps, hands up.

The gun goes still. Drifts down.

“My god…” she breathes, and his lungs remember how. _“Steve?”_


End file.
